News

9 Sep 2016

[News] New prices effective September 9th, 2016

Streaming media is a very active and quickly developing area in IT. Because so many technological changes are happening every year, the marketplace changes as well. In order to stay relevant, DDVTech often adjusts their pricing schemes to match current market needs.

At DDVTech we love doing what we do best: creating premium technology for users that know what they want. This means that in principle, MistServer and related services are geared towards enterprise and premium users. However, we noticed that enterprise-level customers often had requests and needs that we did not offer in our standard packages, and other things that we did offer were not very much in demand. As a natural result, we adjusted which packages and services we have in our standard offering.

Enterprise

Our biggest changes in enterprise pricing is that at first we offered two different types of licenses: either per-instance or unlimited. We also made a difference in the ability to redistribute or not. In the new pricing scheme, all enterprise licenses are the same: unlimited instances, with distribution rights while the license is in effect. This comes at a static price, regardless of business size or instances used. We removed all extras from our base package, and now offer these as separate optional items, á la carte-style. We added a few new ones that were often requested as well.

The following packages are available on a monthly basis:

Commercial use license ($2,500 USD monthly; minimum 1 month):

While this package is active, you are allowed to both use and distribute MistServer for commercial purposes. There is no use limit, no instance limit, no other hidden per-server fees of any kind. This package may be used either for the open source edition or the Pro edition, at no additional charge.

Offline use ($2,500 USD monthly; minimum 1 month):

Normally MistServer requires an active internet connection to remain functional. While this package is active, you can both use and distribute MistServer without an active internet connection required.

48h patch service ($1,000 USD monthly; minimum 12 months):

MistServer is extremely robust and rarely has issues. We are so confident of this, that we are willing to guarantee it. For mission-critical use, we offer this package. While active, it guarantees a fix or workaround for any suddenly encountered bugs or issues within 48 hours after notifying us.

Tested appliance ($750 - $500 USD monthly each; minimum 3 months):

For our customers that build appliances (either physical or virtual) that rely on MistServer, we offer this package. While active, you send us your appliance(s) and we test each new MistServer release against your appliance(s) for compatibility problems and other regressions. MistServer generally has a 3 month release interval, hence the 3 month minimum duration. Your first appliance is $750 USD per month, each additional appliance is $500 per month.

Weekly expert call ($500 USD monthly; minimum 1 month):

Our team really knows media, and we are willing to share that knowledge with you. Want to stay up to date on the latest developments? Share your ideas with us? Ask for advice? Want feedback on your platform? While this package is active, you will receive a planned weekly call from one of our engineers, during which you can talk about any of these things and more.

While this package is active, you will receive access to a web panel showing you server vital statistics over time. Additionally, we will actively monitor your server for problems and assist in resolving them if they occur.

Besides the above monthly packages, we also offer these two one-off packages:

Custom development ($200 USD hourly):

Want custom features? Want us to integrate something with MistServer for you? Other MistServer-related programming needs? Of course you can extend MistServer yourself, but with this package you can get the team that knows MistServer best to do custom development for you. This is always done on a per-project basis, at a fixed paid-in-advance price with a fixed deadline. Contact us for details.

Event support ($1250 USD per day per person, plus expenses):

Organising a one-off event? Have a big release coming up? Migrating your entire platform? With this package you can hire the assistance of our engineers on a per-day basis (either on-site or remote), to ensure everything will go smoothly. In the event that anything goes wrong, they will do required patches for you on the spot at no extra cost. Contact us for details.

Special offer for new customers

In the past we have offered free trial periods, but we noticed that the first steps of starting to use MistServer are often confusing for our new users because of how radically different MistServer is. For this reason, we decided to stop our free trial policy and replace it with something else.

Of course we are excited about new projects and new customers. Often a media server is usually a vital part of your platform or solution which means that changing it or replacing it is a risky undertaking. In recognition of this, we have a special offer for new customers.

Usually an integration flows through three phases. In the first phase a proof of concept is made, showing that everything will work. In phase two the integration is completed. In the final phase maintenance and optimizations happen. Especially the first phase can require a lot of manpower: you need to build up expertise, solve the major problems, etcetera. In the second phase it's mostly polish, and in the final phase regular maintenance will ensure your system has no downtime.

To assist in this process, we are willing to co-invest in the first phase. Normally, the commercial use license and most of our optional services for a three month period would cost up to $13.500,00 USD, but new customers get all of this for a one-time fee of $4.500,00 USD. After those three months, you will see your working proof of concept and can decide to continue with MistServer or not, no strings attached.

During this first period we will work closely with you and discover if you will need any custom development (and if so, how much) and what optional services you need, making sure the transition to MistServer is as smooth as possible. Your eventual monthly cost will be somewhere between the above mentioned initial special offer prize and our normal price for all optional services enabled.

Naturally these special offers take a lot of time of our team, and because of this we can only offer it to a limited amount of new customers each month. Please contact us to find out if there are any spots still open and we will give you full details as well as answer any questions you may have.